Deacon Blog

April 2016

All of us have heard of the children’s tale, “The Little Engine That Could”. If you recall, in the tale, a long train must be pulled over a high mountain. Larger engines, one after another, are asked to pull the train. For various reasons they refuse. The request is then given to a small engine, who agrees to try. The...
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Think for a moment of the people who frustrate us the most. Think of those who have (as the Gospel describes) "raised their heel" against us? Those that really get under our skin. When we encounter these types of challenging people, how can we best endure the situation, or even grow from the experience? We can do so...
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Today's First Reading helps to recast the concept that we might have of evangelization- away from solicitation to simply being God's ambassador. Too frequently we have this vision of evangelization being one of a sales process - heavy on promotion, being prepared to overcome objections to our faith, and then, going for the win - inviting...
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All the movements contained in this Gospel all lead to the declaration by Jesus at the very end. Those two words: “Follow me.” I wouldn’t claim myself to be much of a theologian or academic, but I’d like to make the distinction between a theist and a Christian. I’ll keep this simple as I use this...
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In our daily decision making, many times we stand between two opposing choices: Choosing God's authority (from heaven) or man's authority (an earthen authority). Making the right choice between them is not always convenient or make us popular. But because of our "witness" (as it describes in the First Reading), it’s the...
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